FAMILY UPDATE: Thank you for your prayers for the huge job of moving Pam’s mom from Cross Roads, Texas, to Belton, Missouri. Through the hard work of Pam, her sisters and our brothers-in-law, the job is done! Pam’s mom, Barbie Hughes, now lives in a studio apartment in Belton. Pam is still in Cross Roads, TX, for another day as she finishes up her 17 days there, where she and her sister are clearing out everything from the house that did not need to be moved.
God’s grace was evident in so many ways, with safety in travels, strength for long days, provision of unexpected help from people in Barbie’s neighborhood including a man who needed employment whom Pam “happened” to meet, who was using his pickup truck to haul trash and recycling materials and whom we hired to help move and haul lots of stuff. Even many of the resources that Barbie was not able to move, like books, cassette tapes, VHS tapes and clothes, were donated to a homeless shelter where they can be used, which will make her very happy to know!
Our nieces in Dallas were a tremendous help, taking care of the younger cousins so the four sisters could concentrate on the move. The pictures below with our niece, Loice, are indicative of the fun outings they had. And Ariela and Daniel were troopers during this 2 1/2 week stay away from home and were very helpful to Pam.
While in Dallas for this trip, Pam along with her mom and sisters were able to visit her dad’s gravesite, to see the headstone, which they hadn’t been able to see in person yet (see pictures below).
BIBLE TRANSLATION PROGRESS: Todd is working online with Zoki, Stanoje and Sergej in Croatia, to check the spelling and grammar of the translation of the Gospel of Luke and 50 chronological Bible stories in the Ludari Roma language. There are over 14,000 unique word forms, and we have about 3,500 left to check. The picture below is a screen shot showing us working on Zoom in our synchronized Bible translation software. You can see Zoki here working through the letter “a”, where the question mark on the list to the far right means we haven’t told the software yet whether the word is correct, the green check means we’ve approved it as correct, and the red x means it is incorrect and needs to be corrected.
Please pray for us as we do the grammar and spell checking. And please pray for them in Croatia as they meet together as a team to check and edit these translation drafts, and then as they meet with others in the Roma community to test out the translation. Through the tests, which take about two-hours for each chapter of Luke, we try to make sure that the translation is clear for these Roma and we get their feedback on any suggestions or needed corrections.
It seems like we have had a lot of setbacks on these tests lately, in that many of the scheduled testing sessions have had to be cancelled due to various translators or testers getting sick. Please pray that we can get all the checking and testing done as soon as possible since we need to print and record the finished project by the end of January .
MONEY MATTERS: Thank you for your generous financial support! Unexpected donations have for years filled the gap, but our monthly pledges are currently short $1,168 per month. Please pray that this amount will be pledged soon by individuals, groups or churches who want to support our work monthly for the sake of Bible translation for the Roma. If you would like to make a monthly pledge, please see the giving information at the bottom of this page. If you would like us to speak and present our mission work to your church, Sunday school or Bible study group, to ask them for prayer and financial support, please let us know. Thank you so much!
The photo of Pam’s mum sitting in her armchair in the back of the van, reminded me of The Hillbillies when they were on the move!!
The headstone for Pam’s dad is neat. He was born on the same date as my husband, Kris, (15 March) but 22 years earlier.
Praying daily for you. Evelyn and Kris